Upgrading my rig for Ultra Mode
By
Father Xmas,
Posted on: 2011-01-23 11:02 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I would not count on unlocking or overclocking your processor.
Not all processors will unlock extra cores.
Not all processors will overclock.
Counting on a processor to have extra cores that work, or that it will work at higher than advertised clock-rates, is well, a horribly bad idea if you aren't an experienced overclocker and don't have a hefty amount of cash sunk into cooling solutions.
As is your build here doesn't include an extra heatsink for the processor to accomplish overclocking, and you're looking at an extra $55 minimum for a Nexus or a basic Noctua.
That being said, what you have here is adequate.
Personally I'd spend a little bit more and go with a RadeonHD 6850. It'll give you more life compared to the 5770. Keep in mind that the 5770 is approaching, or at, it's 1 year birthday.
I fully understand it's not a guarantee that any of the other disabled cores will be functional. It's a calculated risk on my part but that chip is more than adequate for my needs out the box.
I don't need aftermarket cooling, I wouldn't be pushing anything to the limits by any means and generally speaking I wouldn't need to bother, I'm not trying to play the newest games on the highest setting. I just want to be able to actually play them if I choose.
edit
Thx for the video card suggestion
I am considering dropping the dvd drive and going with the better video card. it's only $60 more total than what I was spending for the first card and it would make sense to invest a bit more into the future. The other stuff would end up outlasting the 5770 I'd imagine.
Pfft, $55 minimum?? The the $40 Scythe Mugen 2 SCMG-2100 is one I can think of offhand.
Edit: Overclock PII X4 965 OC cooler test results.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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never used that one, but it does look fairly solid.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Pfft, $55 minimum?? The the $40 Scythe Mugen 2 SCMG-2100 is one I can think of offhand.
Edit: Overclock PII X4 965 OC cooler test results. |
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badly or favorably depending on "what you are doing"|
Originally Posted by Toxic_Troll
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http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=337&pgno=3
The Phenom II has the advantage in an additional 6mb Level 3 cache compared to the Athlon II. This gives it greater performance in Processor Intensive Applications such as 3D Video games.
The Athlon II has the advantage in an additional Core. If you use lots of applications that are tuned to run with Symmetrical Multi Threading or Symmetrical Multi Processing, you'll see greater returns when running the Athlon II. On Linux based systems the difference is more pronounced as the Operating System's Kernel Scheduler* is better equipped to handle SMT / SMP environments when compared to Microsoft's NT6 scheduler.
I personally would go for the Phenom II since most of the Windows software that is available right now isn't tuned for any more than two processors to begin with. In practical use the extra core on the Athlon II X3 wouldn't buy you any extra performance, and the lack of that Level 3 cache would comparatively harm total performance in single tasks.
*small note: that Orielly book is from 2000... kind of out of date... but I really don't feel like digging up the stuff generated from the Con-Man Kolivas hissy fit on the kernel mailing list*
I had a feeling that the Phenom II x2 was stronger but the whole 3 core thing had me wondering.
Thx for the replies, I can't wait to put this thing together and put a hammer to my e6300 and 9800gt
What about the memory. 4 gb or 8? I plan on upgrading to win7. I know the 64 bit version will see/use more memory but I only have 2 gigs now so 4 is a nice upgrade for me. Is 8 or more the way to go for gaming though since the board can hold 16? I see ultra mode is only asking for 4
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Any chance I can call dibs on you shipping me your older hardware? I'm always looking to expand my pool of hardware to test software against. |
Originally Posted by Toxic_Troll
What about the memory. 4 gb or 8? I plan on upgrading to win7. I know the 64 bit version will see/use more memory but I only have 2 gigs now so 4 is a nice upgrade for me. Is 8 or more the way to go for gaming though since the board can hold 16? I see ultra mode is only asking for 4
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Anyways, I kind of have a hard time "telling" anybody they need more than 4gb of ram. The reason why can be found here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
It's Steam Hardware survey. As of December 2010:
- 24.64% use XP 32bit.
- 13.53% use Vista 32bit.
- 11.03% use Windows 7 32bit.
This has the direct effect that developers really can't afford to optimize their games to use memory counts possible with x86-64 systems. For the average user 8gb of memory isn't going to buy any more real performance over 4gb, or even 2gb dual-channel mode, in most applications, and especially for games in the sub 1920*1200 resolution displays.
Now, this might not be true in two or three years as more x86-64 systems hit the market... but you can pretty much always add more memory.
In this game most likely true, more memory cache > extra cores, but not always. Newer games are starting to be coded for more than two cores.
AnandTech Bench results PII X2 555 Vs AII X3 450 (the few game benchmarks are near the bottom).
Tom's Hardware Gaming Bottlenecks
bit-tech.net - How many cores does Starcraft 2 use?
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
I'd counter this by saying that the total for Windows Vista / 7 64-bit users amounts to 45% of the Steam survey. About 5% use OS X, all of whom are 64-bit. Windows by itself is rapidly approaching greater than 50% for 64-bit systems, and the rate of adoption will only increase in time.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
It's Steam Hardware survey. As of December 2010:
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If you care about future proofing, going 64-bit with the RAM to match is the best idea. It'll save you headaches down the line.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Even with 64-bit Windows 7, 32-bit apps like CoH is still limited to 2GB per process. The primary benefit of 64-bit Windows is the ability to use all the system memory installed since other devices like video cards, drive controllers and the like are now memory mapped way, way away from application space.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
e6300 is still a decent CPU. You would probably find a market for the CPU, mem and MB. 9800 GT? Not so much....
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Originally Posted by Toxic_Troll
I had a feeling that the Phenom II x2 was stronger but the whole 3 core thing had me wondering.
Thx for the replies, I can't wait to put this thing together and put a hammer to my e6300 and 9800gt What about the memory. 4 gb or 8? I plan on upgrading to win7. I know the 64 bit version will see/use more memory but I only have 2 gigs now so 4 is a nice upgrade for me. Is 8 or more the way to go for gaming though since the board can hold 16? I see ultra mode is only asking for 4 |
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Toxic_Troll
What about the memory. 4 gb or 8? I plan on upgrading to win7. I know the 64 bit version will see/use more memory but I only have 2 gigs now so 4 is a nice upgrade for me. Is 8 or more the way to go for gaming though since the board can hold 16? I see ultra mode is only asking for 4
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Anyways, I kind of have a hard time "telling" anybody they need more than 4gb of ram. The reason why can be found here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
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2GB - 22%
3GB - 28%
4GB - 26%
5 or more - 16%
So, currently, 4GB is at the high end for most GAMING systems out there. Having said that, different people may actually need more. If you're asking, you probably don't. If you were running things that required a lot of memory, you'd know it.
I have 8GB. For starters, I run SETI@home and Rosetta@home. These apps load a chunk of data to crunch and can take up 80-200MB and I run EIGHT INSTANCES at all times. Currently also running: a temp monitor, 4 instances of Notepad, Excel, Firefox, an IM client, anti-virus, anti-malware and a bandwidth monitor. I also need to be able to simultaneously run two instances of CoH (I have 2 accounts) plus Photoshop (which is what I use on screenshots).
Running all that in 2GB (on my last computer) kind of sucked. Now, when I'm running all that stuff, my RAM usage typically runs about 6 - 6.5GB. So if you're going to run one game at a time, and nothing more demanding than that, 4GB is PLENTY.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
My budget is $500. It's not a hard budget but I'd like to stay south of that number if possible
This is what I came up with. If anyone can see a way to improve on this please do. My goal was to find cheap components that overclock well and can run Ultra Mode.
HEC Blitz Black Steel Edition ATX Mid Tower Computer Chassis Gaming Case w/ Front Blue LED 120mm Fan & Top 120mm Fan
LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard (Should easily OC my chip out the box)
HIS H577FK1GD Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ... (Should I opt for the IceQ version of this card?)
CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-600CX 600W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply (
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ (should I go for 8 gigs instead? I don't want to pay for what I'm not going to realistically use.)
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - C3 Revision HDZ555WFGMBOX (I plan on unlocking and overclocking this)
Is that the best memory or should I go for the faster one?
I have Sata HDD's already,etc so they aren't listed.